LF USA: Week 1

Hey guys,

I decided to wait until the end of the week to recap my experiences so far, and I am glad I did since my big summer project wasn't announced until Friday anyway. But first things first:

As you might have read in my writer bio, I am interning LF USA, a subsidiary of Li & Fung (a global supply chain management firm of which you are sure to hear about in MKTG 101). LF USA is actually a relatively new company which was created through a series of acquisition throughout the last five years, and it specializes in private label and celebrity brand apparel, kids apparel, fashion accessories, footwear and home design. As a production intern, I have been placed in the Youth Apparel Group working with urban brands such as Rocawear (Jay Z's line), Enyce (extension of Sean John), and Beyonce's Dereon. I will be helping out with managing all aspects of the production process from inception through completion as well as working closely with buyers and designers for fit, construction, trims and color approval -

And now to the exciting news! In addition to my day-to-day activities at Kids Headquarters, I will also be working on an extensive group project with other interns from various departments in the company. We will be trying to identify business opportunities within e-commerce both in existing markets LF brands already compete as well as in original-concept platforms we come up with ourselves. To make things interesting, our team of ten is competing against five other groups, each of which has been assigned a similar project (other two topics include sustainability and organic growth). In August, we will be presenting our findings for Rick Darling, the president of LF USA, and the winning team will receive a $1,000 bonus for each participating member. Needless to say, the competition is on, and I can't wait to get together with my team for our first meeting (not in a GSR, so odd!). We have a great mix of students with backgrounds in business (Pepperdine, UVA), merchandising (Indiana, FIT), and design (RISD, Pratt, Otis). So far, it has been absolutely wonderful hearing everyone's different perspectives on our assignment and just hearing about everyone's school programs and past job experiences.

Either way, I will leave it at that for now. I will probably try to do weekly posts to keep this fresh (I am such a a newbie blogger, in case you couldn't tell), so unless I run into Jay Z and absolutely have to share, see you next week!

xx

- Marlena

First Week at Alchimie Forever

Day 5 , 6/9/2011

Hi Guys,

This summer I'm working at Alchimie Forever, an upscale skincare line located in Georgetown, DC, right by Georgetown University and the Potomac river. It's a great place to be, for anyone who has ever been to Georgetown, it's such a pretty place with a million and one upscale boutiques, shops and eating places. I love it so much, it's like an hour away from my house but I never spent much time there when I was younger.

So I'm Alchimie Forever's sole summer intern and its a pretty sweet deal. Despite being an international company, operating out of both DC and Switzerland and selling to customers in Canada, France, the US and Switzerland, the DC office pretty much runs like a start-up. In the office there's me, Kate, the assistant, and the CEO Ada Polla (look her up and follow her on twitter and facebook!). And since Ada travels ALL THE TIME, from beauty conventions to client meetings to distributor meetings and so on, out of the 5 days I've worked there, she's only be there twice. It's a busy job being the female CEO of an international brand.

My first 5 days were pretty good, I'm still learning the ropes, trying to learn some of the the applications that Kate the assistant uses, how to do all the backoffice stuff so that I can make her job a little easier, and ultimately at the end of the summer take over when she'll be gone for two weeks on a trip to England with her grad. Ps, Kate is awesome, she's only 23 and whenever our boss Ada isn't there, we turn up the showroom stereo and jam out to Adele and Natasha Bedingfeld. Good times.

The highlight of my first week was definitely on my second day when the store's esthetician came in to train local spa workers on how to use the store's products and me and Kate got complimentary facials! I've never had a facial before and all I can say is, MAGIC. She gave me a neck massage and hand massage too, and with the candles flickering and mellow music in the background, I was just so at peace for the 30-40 minute process.

Although the position is unpaid, I'm definitely getting paid in products. The line is relatively expensive, with items ranging from $40-$91, but almost every other day, they give me a product to try for free. I know they want to convert me into a regular customer, but for now I'm just appreciating all the free stuff. Their products make your skin feel amazing, and if I was richer, I'd be a regular.

I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the summer, I'm going to be responsible for doing a lot of market research and event planning which is great because event producing and marketing are the reasons why I applied to Wharton in the first place. It's going to be a wonderful experience and I hope to share it all with you guys. Thanks for reading, more to come!

-Nanette

Day 3: "Turn-In" Meeting

Hi everyone! Today was my third day working in the Integrated Marketing Dept. at Bloomingdale's. I'll be working on anything that involves outside parties that don't directly sell product to Bloomingdale's. Here are some examples of projects I'll be involved in: Bloomingdale's attempt to break the "most simultaneous makeovers" record for the Guinness Book of World Records, NBC pairing with Bloomingdale's to introduce their fall lineup of shows alongside the Bloomingdale's fall lines of clothing, and "the little pink book."

Today we had several meetings on the little pink book. It is a book that comes out in October to raise money and awareness for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The book includes interviews with doctors and celebrities who are breast cancer survivors. And of course, it also contains lots of fashion.

The meetings today were called "turn-in" meetings. Buyers from every department brought exclusive samples from designers to "turn-in." These are items they would like photographed and pages allotted for in the book. We saw a wide variety of products that have yet to be manufactured from the following departments: winter accessories, men's and women's RTW (ready-to-wear), home goods, fine jewelry, and watches. The buyers brought clothing and jewelry from brands such as Echo, DKNY, Aqua, Splendid, Ralph Lauren, The North Face, Hunter, Joe's Jeans, Paige Jeans, True Religion, David Yurman, and Judith Ripka.

Along with the fashion turn-ins, my team turned in the outside vendor pages. We presented auctions of exclusive products, interviews with celebrities, and custom-made products whose purchase will contribute to breast cancer research.

My favorite part was seeing the outfits put together and listening to the discussions between the creative team and the buyers about how the items will be photographed and displayed in the book. Interesting points were if the outfits would be shot "on body" or "still," which part of an ensemble (within an outfit or jewelry set) deserved the focus, and how to choose the centerpiece while taking into account monetary contributions from the brand along with trendiness of the item.

Well, that's all for now - thanks for reading! I'll post again soon :)

Keri

First Blog Entries Coming Soon!

Our blog writers will be starting their retail internships soon, so the first entries will be posted shortly! Check back for updates!